"Undone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... logic is the born fisherman's portion. He is a pattern of inconsistency. He does the things which he ought not to do, and he leaves undone the things which other people think he ought to do. He observes the wind when he should be sowing, and he regards the clouds, with temptation tugging familiarly at his heartstrings, when he might be grasping the useful sickle. It is a wonder that there is ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... fortress of lies, and she was very old and not very wise, tired out, confused by the stare of the mob and the knowledge that every word she uttered endangered the life she had borne. Now she felt that she had undone everything. She blamed herself for ruining the work of years. She saw her son led to death because of her blunder. Her answer to the question and the patient courtesy of the attorney was to throw her hands into the air, toss her white ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... vain and idle surmises as to the duration of the war, but in order to bring home to my countrymen what they are confronted with, so as to insure that they will leave nothing which is at their command undone in order, not merely to secure a triumph, but to secure it at the speediest possible moment. It is in their power to do so. It is also in their power, by neglect, by sloth, by heedlessness, to prolong their ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... my stags, my hills and dales, My stormcocks and my nightingales To have undone this deed, O; For deep beneath My heart is death Which for ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... Sir W. Penn came to me, and we walked together and talked of the late fight. I find him very plain, that the whole conduct of the late fight was ill.... He says three things must be remedied, or else we shall be undone by their fleet. 1. That we must fight in line, whereas we fight promiscuously, to our utter demonstrable ruin: the Dutch fighting otherwise, and we whenever we beat them. 2. We must not desert ships of our own in distress, as we did, for ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice and ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... doors; they resisted her, and her temper rose. Then some force seemed to propel her to commit sacrilege. She shook and shook and tore at the golden clasp, her irritation giving strength and cunning to her hands; and at last the small bolt came undone and the doors flew open—and an exquisitely painted modern picture of the Virgin disclosed itself, holding the Christ child in her arms. But for all the saintliness in the eyes of Mary, the face was an exact portrait ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... the reply, "you see it's this way: Last winter I went to church, an' it was called 'Piscopal, an' I heerd them say that they left undone the things what they'd oughter done and they'd done some things what they oughtenter done, and I says to myself says I: 'That's my fix exac'ly,' and ever sence ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... takest this course, what shall I do? Thou hast said thou lovest me; now make it manifest by granting this my small request—Do not still remain in thine integrity. Next to this come the children, which are like to come to poverty, to beggary, to be undone, for want of wherewithal to feed, and clothe, and provide for them for time to come. Now also come kindred, and relations, and acquaintance; some chide, some cry, some argue, some threaten, some promise, some flatter, and some do all to befool him for so unadvised ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... zeal we will, Something still remains undone, Something, uncompleted still, Waits the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... earth's air, Somewhere else where there is, ah, well, where! one, One. Yes, I can tell such a key, I do know such a place, Where, whatever's prized and passes of us, everything that's fresh and fast flying of us, seems to us sweet of us and swiftly away with, done away with, undone, Undone, done with, soon done with, and yet clearly and dangerously sweet Of us, the wimpled-water-dimpled, not-by-morning-matched face, The flower of beauty, fleece of beauty, too too apt to, ah! to fleet, Never fleets ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... "to regard ourselves from this hour as soldiers of the grand army one day to battle for our liberties—to leave nothing undone in enlisting fresh troops—that our life shall be nothing but an inexorable and never-flagging struggle against the usurper—that we will rather die than submit. We vow vengeance against him, and ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... ministers and preachers, by the love of God and the salvation of souls, and do require them, by all the authority that is invested in us, to leave nothing undone for the spiritual benefit and salvation of them, within their respective circuits or districts; and for this purpose to embrace every opportunity of inquiring into the state of their souls, and to unite in society those who appear to have a real desire of fleeing from the wrath ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... that have been so long left undone have now been done in a masterful way. If we refer to the accompanying illustrations, we can see how effectively the public is being led ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... foundation of the structure we are studying is found exaggerated self-consciousness. Whatever is said, done, or left undone, by others is analyzed by the worrier with reference to its bearing on himself. If others are indifferent it depresses him, if they appear interested they have an ulterior motive, if they look serious he must have displeased them, if they smile it is because he is ridiculous. ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... breath failed him he stopped, but he dared not look back. He fancied that the birds would pursue him, that the dead man had undone his chain and was perhaps hurrying behind him, and no doubt the gibbet itself was descending the hill, running after the dead man; he feared to see these things if he turned ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... go abroad without his heart?" The fish replied: "Come, come, thou art fooling us." Whereupon the fox: "O ye fools, if I could play a trick on the Angel of Death, how much easier was it to make game of you?" So they had to return, their errand undone, and leviathan could not but confirm the taunting judgment of the fox: "In very truth, the fox is wise of ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... father; meanwhile make ready for my return.... I know my mother will willingly forgive me. But I am afraid of the King, our venerable grandsire, I am afraid of Arkel, in spite of all his kindness, for I have undone by this strange marriage all his plans of state, and I fear the beauty of Melisande will not excuse my folly to eyes so wise as his. If he consents nevertheless to receive her as he would receive his own daughter, the third night following this ...
— Pelleas and Melisande • Maurice Maeterlinck
... by the reformers was undone. Parliament refused to restore the confiscated Church lands, which was very natural, as much of this property was now in the hands of the lords and commoners (see p. 548). Mary, however, in her zeal for the ancient faith, restored a great part of the property still in the possession of the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... unless we keep carefully to it, beginning and leaving off at the appointed moment. If the work of one hour is postponed to another, it will encroach on the time allotted to some other duty, if it do not remain altogether undone, and thus the whole business of the day is thrown into disorder. If a man loses half an hour by rising late in the morning, he is apt to spend the rest of the day seeking after it. Sir Walter Scott was not only methodical in his work, ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... that very day more butter came at the churning, and from that time on, more, but still not so much as ought by rights to have come. Then, one day, I thought to unknot the rope, and I undid, and undid, and undid. Well, when I had got it undone, that day the butter came as ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... selected dinner. She fell easy prey to one of those fits of the blues to which all imaginative young people are at least occasional victims, and by which those cursed and hampered with the optimistic temperament are haunted and harassed and all but or quite undone. She had a sense of failure, of having made a bad impression. She feared he, recalling and reinspecting what she had said, would get the idea that she was not in earnest, was merely looking for a lover—for a chance to lead a life of luxurious ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... you for an age," Flossy exclaimed, with the genuine ring of regret in her tone, with which busy people partially atone for having left undone the things they ought or would like to have done. "Which way are you going? Can't I take ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... other periodicals are historically of great value. Here he abandons the artificial school; nothing in his delineations of character is simply statuesque or pictorial. He has done for us what the historians have left undone. They present processions of automata moving to the sound of trumpet and drum, ushered by Black Rod or Garter King-at-arms; but in Addison we find that Promethean heat which relumes their life; the galvanic motion becomes a living stride; ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... plague is prevalent, the closing of the hospital is the only safe course to pursue; for one person, coming into the dispensary suffering from this disease, may do more harm in a few minutes than could be undone in ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... following sentences, and adapt the interjections to the emotions expressed by the other words: Aha! aha! I am undone. Hey! io! I am tired. Ho! be still. Avaunt! this way. Ah! what nonsense. Heigh-ho! I am delighted. Hist! it is contemptible. Oh! for that sympathetic glow! Ah! what ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... decent indeed. It was also decided to erect a memorial in honour of the dead; for this object seven hundred pounds was subscribed. The Refugee Committee continued to perform their duties with unabated energy. It was creditable to all concerned that nothing was left undone to lighten the burden of the poor; and the deftness—not to speak of the charity—of the ladies in the scooping out of meal ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... penciled eyebrows. A professional in the "make-up" art can touch the eyebrows here and there and bring a marvelous change. But for the ordinary amateur it is better left undone. Besides, if coloring is applied, it is only a short time before the hair will fall out. And then ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... ability," when he enthusiastically consulted her on the navigation of the North-West Passage. For the last fifteen years he had been trying to collect ships and men for the enterprise. "It is the only thing in the world left undone whereby a notable mind might be made ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... one foot to the other. "My shoe lace came undone," he muttered finally. All the time he was talking he kept looking behind him and over the route he had just come. He seemed to ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... the mornin'; We 'ad to stop the fun, An' we sent 'im 'ome on a bullock-cart, With 'is belt an' stock undone; But we sluiced 'im down an' we washed 'im out, An' a first-class job we made, When we saved 'im, smart as a bombardier, ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... Nothing was left undone to crush the body and spirit of this man; but sorrow and suffering make for sacred force, and those who have never felt it will fail to realize how it is that Alexander Berkman will return to those who loved and esteemed him, to those whom he loved so well, and still loves so well,—the oppressed ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... talent, combined, it may be, with superior worldly station, to support him in his wilfulness. [640:2] But it would be very foolish to suppose that the brethren who were thus cast out of the Church were thereby eternally undone, for such certainly was not the judgment of the beloved disciple. Faith in Christ, and not a relation to any visible society, secures a title to heaven. Thousands, as well as the thief on the cross, have been admitted into paradise who have never been baptized, [640:3] and we might point out numberless ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... have recognized a change, it is true, ever since Earl Russell gave the hint that our cause was more popular in England than that of the South. We have gratefully accepted the friendly acts already alluded to. Better late than not at all. But the past cannot be undone. British "neutrality" has strengthened the arms that have been raised against our national life, and winged the bloody messengers that have desolated our households. Still, every act of justice which has ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... at him, for that explanation was too outrageously ridiculous. Armenians love money, whatever else they do or leave undone, and can wring a handsome profit out of business whose very existence the easier-going Turk would ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... country roads, But here in London streets I ken No such helpmates, only men; And these are not in plight to bear, If they would, another's care. They have enough as 'tis: I see In many an eye that measures me The mortal sickness of a mind Too unhappy to be kind. Undone with misery, all they can Is to hate their fellow man; And till they drop they needs must still Look at ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... O Moab! Thou art undone, O people of Chemosh,' if you light not the torch of equal rights!" exclaimed the platform patterer as Saint-Prosper drew near. "Awake, sons of the free soil! Now is the time to make a stand! Forswear all allegiance to the new patroon; this Southern libertine and ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... speak on, but failed. Anna and Miranda had joined them and Flora had risen from her seat on the balustrade, aware at once that the role she had counted on was not to be hers, the role of comforter to an undone rival. ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... days after, according to his former custom, the child returned, louder than before, if possible; the porter keeping his word, took the boy and pulled off his rags, and anointed him all over with honey, leaving no part undone, and very thick, and then threw him into a tub of fine feathers, which as soon as he had done, he set him on his legs and frightened him home to his mother, who seeing this thing, for none living could guess him a boy, ran out into the city, the child squeaking after her, and all the people in ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... What if Jasper had locked the doors? How would it be possible for her to account for her strange absence from the house at that hour? But Antony had also thought of this, and after the main doors had been closed he had softly undone a side entrance, and watched near it for his sister's return. His punishment begun when he saw her wretched condition; but there was no time then for either apologies ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... for other than the "big tree," referred to in the dialogue between the two robbers; and that they recognise it as such is evident by their action. Soon as sighting it, they head straight towards its stem, and halting, slip down out of their saddles, having undone the cords by which the captives were ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... your cloak. (Aside.) Undone! the very person whom I've provided as a champion, wants one himself. (They ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... that not one of the eligible young men already in the neighborhood had made Gwendolen an offer, why should Mr. Grandcourt be thought of as likely to do what they had left undone? ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... natures, springing up out of a rich and fruitful soil on foundations of rock. Many a time Eve had seen revelations of the strength that lay below the appearance of weakness, and made such full allowance for all that David left undone, that the slightest word now might bring about a closer union of ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... Prospect Hill on the night of the fifteenth, but neither Lucy nor Arthur were there. He lay sick again at the St. Denis in New York and she was alone in her chamber, fighting back her tears and praying that, now the worst was over, she might be withheld from looking back and wishing the work undone. She went with the bridal party to New York, where she tarried for a few days, seeing no one but Anna, for whom she sent at once. The interview had lasted more than an hour, and Anna's eyes were swollen with passionate weeping ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... great offence to the regular Army, naturally jealous at all times of the civilian soldiery, but especially alarmed now by observing into what hands the Militia was going. It would be a militia of King's men, they said, and the Commonwealth would be undone! So strong was this feeling in the Army that Monk himself had remonstrated with the House, and the Militia Act, though passed on the 12th of March, was not printed till the House had removed his objections. This ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... content if your Excellency has good hope of me and a better opinion than that which, by no fault of mine, you have perchance conceived of me; beseeching you not to let me be undone in your estimation by the malignant tales of other men, until at last my life and my works shall prove the contrary ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... for the same purpose. For a time he grew stronger and better, but the improvement was only temporary. He came home to die, and to Helen this result seemed to be the end of all things. She had devoted herself to looking after his comfort with a zeal and an intelligence that left nothing undone. This had been her mission in life. Her mother had died when Helen was a little child, leaving herself and her brother, who was some years older, to the care of the father. Helen remembered her mother only as a pale, beautiful lady in a trailing robe, who fell asleep one day, and was mysteriously ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... Moffat's sustaining arm, I did not need the startling picture of the prisoner, standing upright, with outheld and repellant hands, to realise that the impossible had happened, and that all which he, as well as I, had done and left undone, suffered and suppressed, had ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... such an alluring picture. Now that her hair was undone, its length and its profusion surprised him, for it completely mantled her, and through it the snowy whiteness of her bare arms, folded protectingly across her rounded breasts, was dazzling. The sight put him in a conquering ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... for the results of a calamity which is borne by the whole community. In justice, the farmers who have not suffered ought to compensate those who have; but the bill does what it ought not to have done, and leaves undone what it ought to have done, by not equalizing the incidence of the burden upon that class, inasmuch as, from the operation of the local principle adopted, that portion of an agricultural community who have not suffered at all will not have to pay at all, and ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... His sympathy for the soldiers was as tender as that of a woman, and his tears were ever ready to start at the mention of their hardships, their bravery, their sufferings and losses. Nothing that he could do was left undone to minister to their comfort in field or camp or hospital. His most exacting cares were never permitted to divert his thoughts from them, and his anxious and tender sympathy included all whom they ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... means do so," the captain replied. "The matter is an important one, and you will do well to consider it in all lights before you take a step that, once taken, cannot be undone." ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... the August of mine age, When more than half my tap of life was run, Rich by rewards given by your mother sage, For merits past, and service yet undone, I longed to leave this wandering pilgrimage, And in my native soil again to won, To get some seely home I had desire, Loth still to warm ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... after this things prospered, and Sir Harry saw before him the prospect of a new self-governing Dutch colony, which would resemble and equal those of Natal and the Cape. But he reckoned without his host, and all that he had taken the trouble to do was ultimately undone. In 1852 the Government at home declared its policy to be the ultimate abandonment of the Orange River Sovereignty. For this pusillanimous policy there were several reasons, the greatest being a fear of a Basuto rising and the trouble it ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... warning friends! How fortunate is he, Who learns of others' loss his own to shun! Trust not caressing arms and sighs, nor be By flatteries undone! ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... document entitled, "Ordinance concerning the Wandering of Working-men." I will briefly translate its contents. The "Verordnung" commences with a preamble, to the effect that, notwithstanding the various things that have been done and undone with respect to the aforesaid journeymen, it still happens that numbers of them wander purposeless about the land, to the great burden of their particular trades and the public in general, and to the imminent danger of the common safety. Therefore, be it enacted, that "passports," ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... tended on the contrary to nourish and strengthen it. She says that when she found herself so overwhelmed with business as scarcely to know where to begin, she besought our Lord's help, reminding Him that without it, all must remain undone, and the appeal was never made in vain. Looking back in later life to this period, she remarks that the trials and hardships which she had to encounter during her residence with her brother-in-law, were especially arranged by Divine Providence ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... author and contriver of this bloody affair is not at present here. I sincerely wish that he was, because we should be able to convince him that such crimes as his cannot escape unpunished. The unhappy prisoner, ruined and undone by the treacherous flattery and pernicious advice of that abandoned, insidious, and execrable wretch, who had found means of introducing himself into her father's family, and whilst there, by false pretences of love, gained the affection of his only daughter and child. Love! did I call it? It deserves ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... demand of trust from each. The words pass into our souls, and thenceforward we can never be the same as if they had not been there. The smallest ray of light falling on a sensitive plate produces a chemical change that can never be undone again, and the light of Christ's love, once brought to the knowledge and presented for the acceptance of a soul, stamps on it an ineffaceable sign of its having been there. The Gospel once heard, is always the Gospel ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... our walk or service, not our faith or repentance or anything we have done or are doing is the ground of peace with God, but what Christ has done for us. Yea He Himself is our peace. And because He is our peace, it is a peace which can never be undone or unsettled. ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... but the slaying of heretics, as appears from the words of Chrysostom. Augustine too, says (Ep. ad Vincent. xciii) of himself: "It was once my opinion that none should be compelled to union with Christ, that we should deal in words, and fight with arguments. However this opinion of mine is undone, not by words of contradiction, but by convincing examples. Because fear of the law was so profitable, that many say: Thanks be to the Lord Who has broken our chains asunder." Accordingly the meaning of Our Lord's words, "Suffer both to grow until the harvest," ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... yielding herself to Herbert's embracing arm; and something so gentle in her, so much needing protection on Mill Pond Bank, by Chinks's Basin, and the Old Green Copper Ropewalk, with Old Barley growling in the beam,—that I would not have undone the engagement between her and Herbert for all the money in the ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... dear, I was only going to read— Mrs. Dang. No, no; you will never read anything that's worth listening to. You hate to hear about your country; there are letters every day with Roman signatures, demonstrating the certainty of an invasion, and proving that the nation is utterly undone. But you never will read anything to entertain one. Dang. What has a woman to do with politics, Mrs. Dangle? Mrs. Dang. And what have you to do with the theatre, Mr. Dangle? Why should you affect the character of a critic? I have no patience with you!—haven't you ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... still I cannot, my dear, agree with you, that she is a good mother. In the whole course of the education of her son and daughter, she has pursued a system of artifice. Whatever she wanted them to learn, or to do, or to leave undone, some stratagem, sentimental or scenic, was employed; somebody was to hint to some other body to act upon Amelia to make her do so and so. Nothing—that is, nothing like truth, ever came directly from the mother: there were always whisperings and mysteries, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... that what you did you did in a moment of insane rage. I know that the moment it was done you would, in your secret soul, have given the world to have undone it." ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... trusted implicitly to his honour, and their whole action of the night stands out in marked contrast to his. They left nothing undone that was consistent with the reputation of their tribe. With that alertness of the senses which is at once the marvel and despair of civilised peoples, they knew that the pirates were on the island from the moment one ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... knot came undone, and the shoe dropped to the floor with a thud. Sammy sat upright. "No, it ain't, Mandy; it's a heap more'n that; it's a nursin' babies, and a takin' care of 'em 'till they're growed up, and then when they're ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... 'fastened by the people over his door-lintel' testifies to be the 'Ministre adore,' are dwindling into clearer and clearer nullity. Execution or legislation, arrangement or detail, from their nerveless fingers all drops undone; all lights at last on the toiled shoulders of an august Representative Body. Heavy-laden National Assembly! It has to hear of innumerable fresh revolts, Brigand expeditions; of Chateaus in the West, especially of Charter-chests, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... some remote place, perhaps not Tibet, but at any rate a quiet spot in the country fully twenty miles out of London. Before going, however, I must in some way show Miss Warrington the utter folly of her illusions regarding my unfortunate self. Nothing must be left undone to ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... fiscal stimulus buoyed domestic demand. While slow progress has been made in recapitalizing the financial sector, tough measures - such as implementing a privatization plan and forcing the private sector to restructure - remain undone. ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... guerdons, and instead of gifts and jewels, soiled tracts and battered codices, gladsome alike to our eye and heart. Then the aumbries of the most famous monasteries were thrown open, cases were unlocked and caskets were undone, and volumes that had slumbered through long ages in their tombs wake up and are astonished, and those that had lain hidden in dark places are bathed in the ray of unwonted light. These long lifeless books, once most ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... lying in my bed beneath the vast canopy of the sky, all my sins seem forgiven me. Fate alone—Fate who bears all things on his shoulders—is to blame, and I wish nothing undone. ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... all we can, but see him also in every rippling brook, in every tender flower, in all beauty, all sublimity, all arrangement and adaptation of this world. No wonder that naturalism should come to do what the Church has left undone—to find its God and Father in this great and wonderful world which he has made for us. The creed says, "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost;" that is, God the Creator, seen in Nature ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... "No," he said at last, "let it go. The whipping is done, and can't be undone; I don't want to make ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... is what I want to prevent—if only I can prevent it. It is Guy's only chance. What he did was done wickedly enough, but it was at a time of great excitement, when he was not altogether master of himself. But unless it can be undone, he will go right down—and never come up again. Oh, don't you see—" a sudden throb sounded in her tired voice—"that if once Burke knows of this, Guy's fate is sealed? There is no one else to help him. Besides,—it wasn't all his own doing. ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... be obvious," Walters replied in a tone of mild protest. "You blame me for my friend's illness, and though I don't know what I left undone, I am, in a sense, responsible; anyway, I was with him. Well, I found I had to go east, and determined to put off my business for a day or two so I could stop over and see how ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... literary criticism. When Addison heard of this scheme, he readily lent his aid to it, and then, as honest Richard admits, "I fared like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid,—I was undone by my auxiliary." To the Tatler Addison contributed a number of papers, which, if slighter than his better ones in the Spectator, were nevertheless highly characteristic of his singular powers of observation, character-painting, humour, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... was thinking of him? Did he know, by instinct, that she would be doing all that could be done to bring about his release? But was she? Again her mind was filled with the disquieting question, was there nothing that might be done, that she was leaving undone? Had she forgotten something, neglected something? She was sure Gimblet did not believe David to be guilty, but was he certain of being able to prove his innocence? He did not seem to have ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... also, how Themistocles, when he was in great prosperity, and courted by many, seeing himself splendidly served at his table, turned to his children and said: "Children, we had been undone if we had not been undone." Most writers say that he had three cities given him—Magnesia, Myus and Lampsacus—to maintain him in bread, meat and wine; and some add two more, the city of Palaescepsis, to provide him with clothes, and Percote, with bedding and furniture ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... and have recorded Within the red-leaved table of my heart. Fair and of all beloved, I was not fearful Bluntly to give my life unto your hand, And at one hazard all my worldly means. Go, tell your husband; he will turn me off And I am then undone: I care not, I, 'Twas for your sake. Perchance in rage he'll kill me; I care not, 'twas for you. Say I incur The general name of villain through the world, Of traitor to my friend. I care not, I. Beggary, shame, death, scandal and reproach For you I'll hazard all—why, what care I? For you ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... illigence itsilf this side: you wouldn't be afther leaving half undone, like a man ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... lad—for the mayor did not deceive himself for a moment by the thought that he would be able to conceal from his wife the cause of Jack's absence; he was too well aware of Mrs. Anthony's power of investigation. Still, after it was done it could not be undone, and it was better to have one domestic storm than a continuation of ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... oneself the evil is done, by oneself one suffers; by oneself evil is left undone, by oneself one is purified. Purity and impurity belong to oneself, no one ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... and she heard it singing in the morning. And when it began to come winter she knew the bird would go away, so what do you think she did? She got it catched one day, and she tied a very weeny, weeny ribbon under its wing, some way that it couldn't come undone, and then she let it go. And soon it went away to that other country, and the winter came. And the girl was very ill that winter. I don't know if it was measles she had," said Tom, looking very wise, "but I should think it was. And they thought she was going to die after the ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... Self-centred, who each night can say, "My life is lived": the morn may see A clouded or a sunny day: That rests with Jove; but what is gone He will not, can not, turn to nought, Nor cancel as a thing undone What once the ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... it was all wasted away in boundless hospitality and generosity, and so many had had a share in his goods that they could never be recovered nor could it be said of any man that he was the cause of Buicad's undoing. But undone he was at last, and when there remained to him but one bull and seven cows he departed by night with his wife and Ethne from Dun Buicad, leaving his mansion desolate. And he travelled till he came to ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... instant Buckingham was upon him and binding his arms tight behind; the poor, cowardly knave begging at every breath for his life. He was completely undone with fright, his heart ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... help recording at this point, for the benefit of reckless persons, how saying I in a book feels. It feels a good deal like a very small boy in a very high swing—a kind of flashing-of-everything through-nothing feeling, but it cannot be undone now, and so if you please, Gentle Reader, and if everybody will hold their breath, I am going to hold on tight and ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... her head as I passed. I said rapidly,—Pender was in sight,—"You had better." In the evening I hid myself in the loft, allowed the barndoors to be closed, and should have had to stay all night there if some one had not undone one of the wickets; they fastened ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... now after death and buriall done, Had charge the tender orphans of the dead 380 And widowes ayd,[*] least they should be undone: In face of judgement[*] he their right would plead, Ne ought the powre of mighty men did dread In their defence, nor would for gold or fee Be wonne their rightfull causes downe to tread: 385 And, when they stood in most necessitee, He did ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... then. Just give me time to set down these necessary commodities, and I'll show you exactly the manner in which it's done and undone." ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... therefore I am." But happily these cases are exceptional. Most of us might be well, if we would. It is very much our own fault that we are ill. We do those things which we ought not to do, and we leave undone those things which we ought to have done, and then we wonder there ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... up all my tact to evade the invitation. If the active part of me had not been stunned on the night when Helen threw me over, I believe I should have kept bright the jewel of consistency. But the kindness of Molly in circumstances the opposite of kind, had undone me. Here I was, pledged to get myself up like a figure of Fun, and sit glued for days to the seat of a noisy, jolting, ill-smelling machine which I hated, feeling (and looking), in my goggles and hairy coat, like a circus ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... could any husband have been less intrusive? You will tell me that I have no feelings, no preference, and thus no credit; that I go before the wind; that all this was in my character. And indeed, one thing is true,—that it is easy, too easy, to leave things undone. But, Seraphina, I begin to learn it is not always wise. If I were too old and too uncongenial for your husband, I should still have remembered that I was the Prince of that country to which you came, a visitor and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... would perhaps be a fitter representative,—but the dark freeman looked at the white slave with the pitiful, yet puzzled expression I have so often seen on the faces of our wisest men, when this tangled question of Slavery presents itself, asking to be cut or patiently undone. ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... out if Lucifer had not taken advantage of his stay at Antioch to denounce Meletius as an associate of Arians. By way of making the division permanent, he consecrated the presbyter Paulinus as bishop for the Eustathians. When the mischief was done it could not be undone. Paulinus added his signature to the decisions of Alexandria, but Meletius was thrown back on his old connection with Acacius. Henceforth the rising Nicene party of Pontus and Asia was divided from the older Nicenes of Egypt and Rome by ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... the removal of his own scalp. Possibly the Turks had learned the practice from the Chinese and introduced it into Baghdad (Pilgrimage i., 240). The Badawi plait their locks in Kurun (horns) or Jadail (ringlets) which are undone only to be washed with the water of the she-camel. The wild Sherifs wear Haffah, long elf-locks hanging down both sides of the throat, and shaved away about a finger's breadth round the forehead and behind the neck (Pilgrimage ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... despair for applause, as a sailor thrown overboard might look for a buoy; I had seen him as much exhausted, and even overwhelmed, by the want of applause, as if he had dropped into an exhausted receiver. If some lucky epigram did not come to his rescue, he was undone. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... is the best chance. But it is a dreary lookout for two young things. That is in wiser hands, however! If only I saw what was right to do! My miserable carelessness has undone you all!" ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... your pickle and we know just what you'll do; There is only one escaping, only one to ransom us From the rumpus we have kicked up and the madness of the muss: Give the women all they ask for! We were chumps to treat them ill.— We're undone if they keep knocking on the ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... conversation, there was sufficient truth in it to make anything but a flat denial seem of little value to the President; and, as I could not make such a denial, his point of view seemed to be that the damage was done and could not be undone. I am inclined to think that he ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... his orders, which he would not see carried out. Sometimes he would fell timber, and then leave it to rot in the wood; or he would plough a field, and sow it not. At one time he had a fancy to be a minstrel, but he had not patience to attain to skill; he would write a ballad and leave it undone; or he would begin to carve a figure of wood, and toss it aside; sometimes he would train a dog or a horse; but he would so rage if the beast, being puzzled for all its goodwill, made mistakes, that it grew frightened of him—for nothing can be well learnt except through love and trust. He ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... bonds were undone and we walked to where the king and Brother John stood, the miserable Imbozwi and his attendant doctors huddled ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... I had made a grave mistake in bringing Grindhusen to Ovrebo. It was done now, but I wished it undone. And I told Grindhusen himself as much, and that ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... more tried to ride a pair of roller skates. That is the reason I got down on the rink and down on roller skates. That is the reason several people got down on me. That is also the reason why I now state in a public manner, to a lost and undone race, that unless the roller-rink is at once abolished, the whole civilized race will at once ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Montano came and laid his arm around Bart's shoulders, persuasively. "Bart, I know how you feel. But can't you trust me? You're Rupert Steele's son, and you're here to carry on what your father left undone, aren't you? If you fail now, there may not be another chance for years—maybe ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... thy brother Abd al-Kaddus and profit by this occasion to earn reward from Allah for helping him." Quoth he, "This wilful youth weeteth not what he undertaketh; but Inshallah! we will help him after the measure of our means, nor leave aught feasible undone." When Hasan heard the Shaykh's word he rejoiced and kissed the hands of the five elders, one after other, imploring their aidance. Thereupon Abd al-Ruwaysh took inkcase and a sheet of paper and wrote a letter, which he sealed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... reason for congratulating yourself," replied Roseleaf, as they reached the horses, "that you did not follow him. He has promised to keep away from the Ferns, and I think they have seen the last of him. What is done can't be undone, ugly as it is. Now," he continued, vaulting into his saddle, "your course is reasonably plain. You must visit Miss Daisy soon, let her know that the extent of her misfortune is in your possession, and after a reasonable time, ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... been done never can be undone: the past cannot be recalled.—This proverb is an abbreviation of the longer Buddhist text: Rakkwa eda ni kaerazu; ha-kyo futatabi terasazu: "The fallen blossom never returns to the branch; the shattered ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... no; I want no parsons praying by my side. What's done is done, and can't be undone. Go now, Jack, I wish to get a ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... Jesus and Mary, which were in the florid cantata style of that day. He subsequently determined to re-write them; but "when about to begin," he says, "it seemed to me as though I could no longer enter into the spirit of the subject, and so it remained undone. To publish the work as it was, I could not make up my mind. Thus in later years it has lain by without any use being ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... in parchment, and them sell by retail, whereby many of the king's subjects, being binders of books, and having no other faculty therewith to get their living, be destitute of work, and like to be undone, except some reformation herein be had,—Be it therefore enacted, &c." By the 4th clause or provision, if any of these printers or sellers of printed books vend them "at too high and unreasonable prices," ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... these shattered churches will be pointed out to visitors as the work of the modern Vandals, and lovers of art and beauty throughout the world will execrate the nation which permitted the sacrilege. They have destroyed glass and paintings and sculptures that were a joy to the whole world, they have undone the work of saints and heroes and masters, and they have gained no corresponding military advantage. In every city which has been subjected to air raids the inhabitants have been made more obstinate, more iron-hard in their ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... wipe out the past with exposure, humiliation, shame, and blood? He had been proud of her; he had loved her; he had been very, very happy with her. She had been his inspiration; a part of his hopes, ambition, life. True, she had undone all this, but the memory of it remained. Until this recent act of shame, she had been kind, unselfish, gentle, and faithful. Who knows why she fell? Who could sound the depths of this strange mystery; who measure the capacity of her resistance; ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... which your Lordship would send were joined to the power of Canvoja, the principal city of Sian might easily be taken; and then the other kingdoms could immediately and easily be won, for when this one is undone the others have no spirit to defend themselves singly. As the said king of Canvoja continues always to favor and help the Spaniards, as it is certain that he will do, Yndia cannot come to aid in this as it has so many enemies at its gates; and, if your ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... minutes—many bitter thoughts passed through her mind. "I am much obliged to you for your kind offer, but I do not think I can accept it. If I have made a mistake, it has been committed already, and cannot be undone. To-night, I will write my application to the directors of the —— Asylum; tomorrow I will be on my way to Cross Hall. I cannot, after such a day as this, collect my thoughts sufficiently in a strange house, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... them. But shall they remain undone if we don't do them? The city of New York is so great that it swings the State of New York. The virtues that are in each do not complement one another, as the virtues of Boston and Massachusetts do. Where shall you find, in our house or in our grounds, the city and the State ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... that success was just back of the curtain. Now he was to meet the little man who had made this prospect of success possible. Now his greetings must be cordial and appreciative. Nothing should be left undone to overcome the disappointments the midget must endure. In his first meeting with Davy, Welborn had tried to discourage the plan of "holing up" in a remote section, far removed from the things to which he was accustomed. He pictured himself as an old grouch, soured on the ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... Harry Gilmore,—to think of marrying him when her heart was so stirred by the letter which she held in her hand,—of that she was quite sure. She had done the man an injury for which she could never atone. Of that she was well aware. But the injury was done and could not now be undone. And had she not told him when he came to her, that she would even yet return to Walter Marrable if Walter Marrable ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... is in great measure a natural gift, but it can be cultivated, and is well worth the trouble. Nothing can be so utterly painful in society as the tactless person who is perpetually "doing those things which he ought not to have done, and leaving undone those things which he ought ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... murdered victims! Now, then, thou hast a notable occasion for displaying those illustrious qualities of thine, that wonderful endurance of hunger, of cold, of destitution, by which ere long thou shalt feel thyself undone, and ruined. This much, however, I did accomplish, when I defeated thee in the comitia, that thou shouldst strike at the republic as an exile, rather than ravage it as a consul; and that the warfare, so villanously evoked by thee, should be called rather the struggle of a base banditti, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... your old self, dear girl. Of course, I can understand it. And your father's illness. But you mustn't think of it in this way. I do love you, Nancy. I couldn't unsay a word I said to you—I don't wish anything undone.' ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... think of this myself sometimes; but I wish that I could think of it always; and that I ever had remembered it. Had I always thought of that awful truth, there are many things I could not possibly have ventured to do which I have done; and many things which I have left undone, which I should have done. Jack, my boy, I say I have done you some little good, but there's no good I could ever possibly do you greater than teaching you to remember that truth always. But I must not knock off this ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... anything of an Englishman that had the least angle of his soul untainted with partiality, and that had the least concern left for the good of his country, that even the worst of these evils were easy to be cured; that if ever this nation were shipwrecked and undone, it must be at the very entrance of her port of deliverance, in the sight of her safety that Providence held out to her, in the sight of her safe establishment, a prosperous trade, a regular, easily-supplied ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... which some one bestows who has the option of withholding it:—now a slave has no power to refuse, so that he does not afford us his help, but obeys our orders, and cannot boast of having done what he could not leave undone." Even under these conditions I shall win the day, and will place a slave in such positions, that for many purposes he will be free; in the meanwhile, tell me, if I give you an instance of a slave fighting for his master's safety without regard to himself, pierced through with wounds, yet spending ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... Pecksniff in the third dimension, seizes him "in the round," horsewhips him out of all keeping, and finally kicks him out of a splendid art of fiction into a sorry art of "poetical justice," a Pecksniff not only defeated but undone. ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... a wood, and tied to trees. One of them in despair exclaimed, "O, I am undone!"—"Are you?" said the other joyfully; "then I wish you'd come ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... to God, who can alone forgive sins, as a lost, undone sinner, though washed in the precious blood of Jesus, and redeemed through faith in His perfect and complete sacrifice. I have, therefore, become one of the Church of the first-born. I am reconciled to God, from whom I was once separated," answered Herezuelo. "What ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... being better off. Without this, I should sit forever. But I feel uneasiness in my present position, and conceive the possibility of not being constrained; or I think of some needful work which remains unexecuted as long as I sit here, and that work undone I perceive will leave my life less satisfactory than it might be. And this imagined betterment must always be in some sense my own. If it is a picture of the gains of some one else quite unconnected with myself, it will not start ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... she was undone; Nonna, who had flown back into the kitchen, returned with a lamp. I saw my beautiful mistress distraught and ran forward to comfort her. She shrank from me with horror, as well she might. "Farewell, lady," I said, "I will go to meet what ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... Israel would have undone the evil work of earlier years; but that was impossible now. Many of them that had suffered were dead; some that had been cast into prison had got their last and long discharge. At least Israel would have relaxed the rigour whereby his ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... writes to his wife from England that he has invented "a sort of artificial resolution respecting things that are difficult of performance. My device," he continues, "is this: I give my word of honor most solemnly to myself to do or to leave undone this or that. I am of course extremely cautious in the use of this expedient, but when once the word is given, even though I afterwards think I have been precipitate or mistaken, I hold it to be perfectly irrevocable, whatever inconveniences I foresee likely to result. If I were capable of breaking ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... my life. The Appendix to the Third Part of John Bull(6) was published yesterday; it is equal to the rest. I hope you read John Bull. It was a Scotch gentleman,(7) a friend of mine, that writ it; but they put it upon me. The Parliament will hardly be up till June. We were like to be undone some days ago with a tack; but we carried it bravely, and the Whigs came in to help us. Poor Lady Masham, I am afraid, will lose her only son, about a twelvemonth old, with the king's evil. I never ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... clear ourselves of the guilt with which we are charged. If it was neither by the anger of the gods, nor by fate, according to whose laws the course of human affairs is unalterably fixed, but by misconduct that we were undone at Cannae; but whose was that misconduct; the soldiers', or that of their generals? For my own part, I, as a soldier, will never say a word of my commander, particularly when I know that he received the thanks of the senate for ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... Valley during those two nights. They held mourning parties in their homes or on the streets. Some house-work had to be done, of course, but no one did anything that could be left undone. The children would not play; they stood about, silent, pale, like wizened-up grown people, over-mature in knowledge of trouble. The nerves of every one were on edge, the self-control of every one balanced ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... the worst consequence, to let pass one or two expressions, at the worst only unwary, in a book written for the public service; or to leave a free open passage for Wood's brass to overrun us, by which we shall be undone for ever. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... impeachment of this match," wrote the English ambassador, near the end of July, 1571. "The Papal Nuncio, Spain, and Portugal, are daily courtiers to dissuade this match. The clergy here have offered Monsieur a great pension, to stay him from proceeding. In conclusion, there is nothing left undone, that may ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... of one man, promoted, for that matter ungrudgingly, to the rank of the "greatest European statesman," but whose work, being that of an individual, and therefore accidental, might quite conceivably be eventually undone. Sybel's theory, being official and Bismarckian, puts forth in truth the French conception, and is, as a matter of fact, the very opposite ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various |
